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I am a TEACHING geek first!

I was captivated by the above bit of wisdom, which I received from a friend. I didn’t like the image that appeared with it on Facebook, so I made an alternative that hints at the demise of tech supremacy (more on that below). A little Googling revealed that the quote was originally posted on Twitter by an award-winning Missouri school principal.

Classrooms don’t need tech geeks who can teach; we need teaching geeks who can use tech. #edchat#edtech

Dr. Geurin also blogs, and in Tech Geek or Teaching Geek? he suggests that maybe teachers need to be both kinds of geeks. He says a teacher’s first concern is to design engaging effective experiences; the tech comes later. A teaching geek will do everything possible to enhance learning, he believes, while a tech geek is more likely to start and stop with tech. My favorite point that Geurin makes is this one: you don’t have to be a geek to use tech well.

Wait, Chris, you’re a major tech geek. What are you trying to say?

I’m a teaching geek first. I know that high-tech tools can help enhance learning, but they are not teaching strategies. I believe we are beginning to move away from seeing technology per se as the go-to answer, toward a focus on effective practice as the key to learning.